Too Many People

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is the newest star on the cultural horizon. Readers of this magazine should by now be familiar with its existence. The Center for Inquiry–International in Amherst, New York, is headquarters of the Council for Secular Humanism, publisher of Free Inquiry. Since there are now over a dozen Centers for Inquiry …

Religion and Morality Though I agree with much of the editorial by Paul Kurtz (“The Principles of Fairness contra ‘Gott Mit Uns!’” June/ July 2004), I disagree with enough of what he said to make me uncomfortable with his brand of humanism, that is, “secular humanism.” Dr. Kurtz contrasts principles of fairness with traditional religious …

In my previous column (Free Inquiry, June/July 2004), I raised the question of the Darwinian survival value of religion. Why, given that natural selection abhors waste and extravagance, is religious behavior a human universal? I discussed various suggestions of direct advantages to religion, all more or less unconvincing, and promised to return to something more …

In the rising resistance against John Ashcroft’s USA Patriot Act and subsequent executive orders revising sections of the Bill of Rights, the attorney general has been particularly irritated by the attention the media are paying to the many librarians around the country who are expunging the records of borrowed books as soon as they are returned—in …

I once heard the late Abba Eban, formerly foreign minister of Israel, address a dovish Jewish audience in New York. In that rather plummy British-English accent of his, he began by saying that what struck the eye first, in any contemplation of the Israel-Palestine dispute, was the simplicity and ease of its solution. That was …

One of the major problems of cities with mild winter climates is the number of homeless people on the street. As social services are being curtailed, almost every large city in the United States has a major problem of dealing with the poor, the mentally ill, the long-term unemployed, the drug addicted, and others who …

“I should like particularly, to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act.”1 Those are the words of Pope John Paul II, speaking in March 2004 to an international congress held in Rome. The conference was on …

The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out. —Walt Whitman, “Carol of Words” On September 19, 2003, I joined Jeff Lowder and Jim Still—both board members of Internet Infidels—on a trek …

SIDE/LINES Atheists: Fear Them — Researchers conducting the three-year American Mosaic Project are surveying Americans’ attitudes toward race and religion. Among many other questions, participants were asked what religious group was the most threatening or dangerous. Fifty-four percent answered “Atheists.” Maybe white, conservative Christians dominated the pool: that group revealed the most antipathy toward diversity, …

What is the optimum population of the U.S.? The world? Overpopulation long mattered to me. A high schooler when the Club of Rome issued The Limits to Growth, I had already embraced its agenda.1 If too many people burdened the planet, I would add no more. I resolved not to father children, and remain child-free to …

Overview The great majority of people around the world never ask, “ Is the world overpopulated?” They don’t know what it might mean to them, any more than members of an endangered species rapidly losing habitat to human encroachment can comprehend the cause of their predicament. That the human population of the world is over …

Overcoming ‘Growthmania’ The very idea of defining an “optimum population” challenges centuries of economic and political assumptions that growth is by definition a good thing. So be it. The challenge of overcoming that assumption is at least as important as any optimum population number we may calculate. How ‘Growthmania’ Began Before the 1300s, unlimited growth …

How many are too many? The earth’s ability to support human life is usually described as the potential productivity of the world’s food supply enhanced by human technological invention. The term most often applied is carrying capacity, which refers to the maximum size of any population (including people) that available resources can support without themselves …

How the environmental establishment changed its tune on U.S. overpopulation The Era of Concern In the heady days of the new environmental awareness, at the first big Earth Day celebration in April 1970, the ecological threat posed by U.S. population growth was part of every discussion. David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club, had …

There are no inherent limits to growth In the late twentieth century, it once again became popular to claim that the world is “overpopulated” and that we were headed for demographic disaster. Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb predicted massive starvation well before the end of the century. It didn’t happen. World population did indeed roughly …

What Problem? A year or so ago, economic analysts were frantic about Europe’s “baby bust,” an idea that appears to have travelled across the Atlantic from the United States. They advised that we must “breed for Europe” or import millions of immigrants to forestall economic collapse due to rising pension obligations and a shrinking workforce. …

We are living in the midst of an unprecedented transition, sometimes called the “agequake.” By 2050, the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history. As the twenty-first century began, the world’s population included approximately 600 million older people, triple the number recorded fifty …

Restrict annual immigration to the U.S. The godless, naturalistic worldview of secular humanism does not logically compel us to adopt a left-of-center viewpoint on every political issue. Aside from the nonnegotiables—church-state separation and protecting the freedoms that many religious people do not want us to enjoy—nonbelievers may differ on many social and political questions. Notwithstanding …

What are they and Why? Near Elberton, Georgia, the self-described “Granite Capital of the World,” stands a weird arrangement of granite that has to be seen to be believed. Five giant stone slabs—four tablets and a central “gnomon stone,” each nineteen feet high—support a huge capstone. The tablets are inscribed front and back in English, …

And Theirs In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation’s great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether …

Evolving Principles for a New Century In 1976, Lester Kirkendall drew up what he called “A New Bill of Sexual Rights and Responsibilities.” It was signed by many distinguished sexologists as well as other scholars and therapists. The original document was commissioned by Paul Kurtz, then editor of The Humanist and later published as a …

¸Newdow Loses on Technicality. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 8–0 to reject California atheist Michael Newdow’s challenge to “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, on grounds that Newdow lacked custodial rights over his school-age child and hence standing to sue. No decision was made on the legality of “under God,” and it is interesting …

Congress Win in India In what must be the most unexpected election victory of the decade, the Congress Party in India, led by Sonia Gandhi, fifty-seven, swept to power in May. And then, to circumvent the ongoing criticism of her foreign birth, Gandhi very magnanimously withdrew from contention as prime minister. With the return of …

Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing is certain—This Life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. — The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayam of Naishapur My father and mother had been married for over fifty years, and when her life …

Most believers and nonbelievers are familiar with Pascal’s Wager, the argument designed to persuade us that the only rational thing to do is believe that God exists. If you do believe, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. If you don’t believe, you’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose. This is …

Spring has sprung, summer is beginning to sing—and weddings are bursting out all over. But what happens if Joseph falls for Jack and Janet dotes on Joan? Is there a wedding on the horizon for them? Do they have a means of celebrating their love and commitment with friends and family? All over Europe, politicians …

We would like to thank Edward Tabash and Margaret Downey for their thoughtful comments on our article “Atheism Is Not a Civil Rights Issue.”1 We are gratified that our article has stimulated such interest. Tabash objects to our characterization of atheism as a matter of public awareness and education rather than of civil rights, and …

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004, ISBN 0805074422) 417 pp. Cloth $27.50. Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism is the freethought book of the year. Make that the decade. OK, the century. The twenty-first century may be young, but it’s hard to believe anyone is …

What Is Good? The Search for the Best Way to Live, by A.C. Grayling (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003, ISBN 0-297–84132-7) 241 pp. Cloth $34. It is a good rule to try and read stuff you disagree with as often as you read stuff you agree with. It’s a good discipline. There are few better …

The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Second Edition, Emmett Fields, ed. (Louisville, Kentucky: Bank of Wisdom, 2004, ISBN 1-929–4708-13-0) CD-ROM $24.95 + $3.00 S/H. Available at www.bank-of-wisdom.com. In its wholly revamped second edition, Emmett Fields’s CD-ROM The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll fulfills its potential as a powerful research tool and a digital compendium of …